Virgin and Child between Saints Cosmas and Damian

The fresco comes from the apse of the small Romanesque Church of Santi Cosma e Damiano. It was removed towards the end of the 19th century from the church and in the 1898 it was donated to the Civic Museum and in recent years. It depicts the Virgin and Child between the Two Medical Saints Cosmas and Damian, who hold the instruments of their profession in their hands. The figures are set in an airy landscape. Fundamental to this is the derivation of the figures of Mary and the Infant Jesus from Raphael’s Madonna of Foligno (1511–1512) The question has not yet been definitively answered of who it was that commissioned the work. It is thought to have been Giovanni Giacomo Castiglioni. On his death in Rome in 1513, the usufruct passed to his brother Filippo, who is credited with the completion of the cycle and the insertion of the two
coats of arms with the inscriptions. Another suggested date would place the frescoes in the early 1620s, but what fascinates us above all is the original pictorial language of this remarkable painter, still
anonymous, who combines an interest in Raphael’s Roman innovations with strong Lombard roots, between Leonardo and Bramantino.(P. Vanoli)